Category Off Road Rally Folded 2014 | Inaugural event 1985 Official Website Australasian Safari | |
Country Western Australia, Australia | ||
The Australasian Safari was an off-road motor sport racing event held in Australia. Like the Dakar Rally, the vehicle classes involved were motorcycles and cars, however there were no truck class. From 2008, a quad class was introduced. The event was first run in 1985 and has been held under the International Sporting Code of FIM and the General Competition Rules of Motorcycling Australia since 1999.
The event was originally known as the Wynn's Safari and was first run in 1985. It was usually held around the end of August, in the Australian winter, and covered approximately 5500 kilometres, mostly through the Outback in just over a week.
The event grew in size and scope for the first few years. In 1988, Australia's Bicentennial year, the event was tagged "The Big One" and was expanded to cover 10,000 km in 15 days, with a start in Alice Springs and traveling across the Tanami Desert, through the Kimberley region into Darwin, across the Gulf Country of far northwest Queensland and an eventual finish in Sydney. Out of 196 starting vehicles, only 96 finished the race. The event changed its name in 1989 to the Australian Safari and to the Australasian Safari in 2008. Since 2007 the event was hosted in Western Australia.
Between 1994 and 1997 the event was included in the FIA Cross-Country Rally World Cup.